Otaasan, 'taasan - Father
koibito - sweetheart, but could also imply lover (woo-woo!)
ojiisan - grandfather
"Birfday, birfday, birfday," Ayame-chan sang, swinging her arm so that Megumi's arm, linked to it by their hands, swung as well. "Yahiko-kun havin' birfday. Birfday, birfday, birfday! We goin' to a birfday party. Birfday, birfday, birfday!"
Ayame-chan was no singer, and she'd never be a composer, either. Still, the tune was strangely catchy--in an off-key, monotonous sort of way. Megumi tried to block it out by looking around at the shops they passed on the way to the Akebako.
She saw a pretty set of hair pins that Kaoru might like, then a print of a samurai that almost made her reconsider what she'd already gotten for Yahiko. That little green kimono would look so pretty on Ayame--
She'd had one like that, long before, green with blue flowers on it. She'd been eight--nine?--no, eight. She'd wanted it so much that she'd begged her father for it for three days straight. He'd refused just as steadily, but it had magically appeared on her blanket on the morning of the fourth day. She had been so delighted she'd not only put it on at once, but gone along with her father on a visit to a patient's house to show it off to as much of Aizu as she could manage.
"Where can we go now, Otaasan?" She'd made a little spin in the street, feeling the edges of the beautiful kimono flap as she did so. "Where, where?"
He'd taken her hand, smiling down at her. "Somewhere you've never been."
She'd been bitterly disappointed when, at the end of the walk, she'd looked up and seen only the home she'd grown up in. "We didn't go anywhere new at all, Otaasan. We just went in a big circle. We're just back home again."
"No, we're not, Megu-chan."
"We are! Look, there's home!"
Her father had laughed and rumpled her hair. "But we're not the same people."
She'd pouted and smoothed down her hair, vain as a peacock at eight years old. "You're being silly, Otaason," she'd said loftily. Her 'taasan did that so much. He was so silly. "I'm still Takani Megumi and you're still my 'taasan."
"But think, Megu-chan. When we left, had we seen--oh--the tofu seller?"
"No."
"And had you showed your new kimono to Yoshi-san?"
"No."
"And had we visited my patient?"
"Of course not!"
"Well--see? We're back at the same place we started from, but we're not the same people because of the things we've done along the way."
She'd looked up at him, puzzled, and he'd sighed and hugged her close to his side. "Someday you'll understand, my daughter." His gaze had turned inward, and he seemed almost to be speaking to himself. "You can't ever go back, even if you wanted to. All you can do is go forward."
"Meg-neesan?"
She came back to herself with a jolt. She was in Tokyo again, not Aizu, with Ayame-chan clinging to her fingers as she'd once clung to her father's. She was grown, and her father--her beloved Otaasan--was long dead. And she was finally beginning to understand his enigmatic words of that day.
Ayame-chan said, "Meg-neesan?" again, and her voice was worried. They'd stopped in the middle of the street, and were getting mutters from other pedestrians, forced to detour around them.
Megumi made herself smile. "It's nothing, Ayame-chan. I'm all right. I was just daydreaming."
Genzai-sensai and Suzume-chan had stopped a little ways ahead of them and were looking back. Genzai-sensai grinned mischieviously underneath his mustache. "Maybe Megumi-san is dreaming of her koibito."
Megumi made herself laugh, even as a flush spread over her cheeks. "No, I wasn't."
Predictably, the girls latched onto this like little leeches. "Koibito! Meg-neesan has a koibito!" they shrieked, jumping up and down and clapping their hands.
"I don't have a koibito!"
"Do too! Do too!"
"No I don't!"
"Maybe she lets him kiss her!" Ayame squealed, utterly scandalized.
"Kiss! Kiss kiss!" Suzume shouted.
"Who's kissing?"
"Rooster! Rooster! Meg-neesan has a koibito!"
Sano lifted his eyes to her and smiled his slowest, sexiest smile. "Oh yeah?"
Megumi could have cooked an egg on her face. "We're going to be late," she said loftily, starting to walk again.
Sano leaned down and said, "Hey, monkey, go walk with your ojiisan."
"How come?" Ayame-chan wanted to know.
"I need to talk to the fox."
"Can't I talk too?"
"It's adult stuff, monkey. Boring."
"Hai." Ayame-chan ran up ahead and took her ojiisan's other hand.
Megumi looked up at him in surprise. Ever since the beginning of their affair, he'd been careful not to show her special attention in public. "What is it, Sano?"
Ayame-chan had started her song again, this time with different lyrics. "Koibito, koibito, koibito!"
"I just wanted to warn you," he said under the little girl's singing. "Kenshin knows about us."
"Meg-neesan has a koibito!"
"You told him?"
"Naw, he figured it out on his own." Sano made a face. "Che. He's too smart sometimes."
"Koibito, koibito, koibito!"
"What did he--how does he--"
"He's fine with it."
"He--"
"Megitsune, Kenshin doesn't judge. You know that."
"Meg-neesan kisses her koibito!"
He looked up the street at Ayame-chan, Genzai-sensei, and Suzume-chan, just entering the Akebako. "D'you s'pose . . ." Sano said slowly.
Megumi shook her head. "Genzai-sensei started it. He was teasing me."
Sano's eyes were serious as he looked back at her. "That's who I meant. Not the kids."
She looked away. "He hasn't said anything other then that," she said in a small voice.
They were almost to the Akebako. She ducked her head and started to step ahead of him. He caught her elbow--another first. "There's somethin' else."
She paused, her hand on the door. "What is it?" He was still holding her arm, his touch warm and gentle through the cloth. It brought back sensory memories of his hands on her bare skin, teasing and stroking . . . not only his hands but his clever mouth . . .
He must have seen something of her thoughts in her eyes, or been thinking the same things himself, because he snatched his hand away and buried it deep in his pocket. "I--uh--" He cleared his throat. "Uh--what would you think if I--um--got a job?"
They were the last words she could have ever expected to come out of his mouth, and the shock made her burst out laughing.
A dull flush spread over his cheekbones, and he faked a laugh. "Yeah--kinda stupid, huh?"
Her laughter died at the sound of his voice. "Sano, you're not serious, are you?"
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Why the hell not? A guy can't gamble forever, ya know."
"But what would you do?"
"I dunno. A--cop or something. I dunno."
"You? A cop?"
He rubbed the back of his neck. "I dunno," he said a third time. "It was just an idea. A stupid one. C'mon, let's go in and join the party. Yahiko and the monkeys are gonna eat everything before we get there."
She followed him, confused. A job? Now where had he gotten that bug in his ear from?
As if their presence was a muffling blanket, a silence fell in the booth that the Kenshin gumi had reserved. There was an open space between Kenshin and Genzai-sensei, just big enough for two. Sano sat, folding his long legs in front of him, and after a moment, Megumi did as well. It would be a bother and, she suspected, worse to ask someone to move over just so she wouldn't have to sit next to Sano all night.
Twelve eyes were turned on them, and Megumi felt like a new and unusual bug.
Sano said, his voice unnaturally loud, "Oi, is this a party or what? C'mon!"
Kenshin said, "Hai," and passed the ohagi.
Five excruciatingly uncomfortable minutes passed before Sano managed to say something that made Yahiko mad. It broke the tension, and everyone relaxed, laughing as Sano ducked the chopsticks Yahiko threw at him.
The party continued with more gusto after that, but Megumi still felt as if everyone in the booth over the age of ten was giving her and Sano sidelong looks when they thought they weren't watching. She cursed Kaoru's idea to have this at the Akebako. If not for the fact that they were in public, she would have jumped to her feet and cried, "Yes, Sano and I are lovers! Yes, you're all right! Now stop looking at us like we're about to explode!"
At the very least, they could have avoided this rather ironic situation--Megumi and Sano pretending that nothing had changed and everyone else pretending that they didn't know a thing. It would be so nice, Megumi thought wistfully, toying with her rice, to be able to acknowledge this openly. Things that other lovers took for granted--the right to casual touches and private jokes and hot, laughing looks--she and Sano had to continually guard against.
And whose choice was that?
From a distance, she heard Tae's warm welcome as someone came in the door. An unfamiliar voice filtered to her ear. "I've heard of a lady doctor practicing here in Tokyo."
"Yes, of course--Takani Megumi-sensei! I know her well--"
There was an indrawn breath. "Please--where is her clinic? I need to find her--I must--"
Megumi set down her rice and stood, stepping down out of the booth and into her shoes. "I'm Takani Megumi-sensei," she announced, walking towards Tae and the travel-stained man who stood with her. "How can I help you?" Behind her, heads popped out of the booth, trying to see what was happening and why Megumi had suddenly gotten up.
The man turned and stared at her. He was about her age, slightly taller then she, with sleek black hair, pale skin, and dark eyes with weary shadows underneath. "M-megumi? Megu-chan? Is that really you?"
She stopped short, hands flying to her mouth. "I thought you were dead," she whispered.
"I thought you were."
With a muffled cry, she ran into his arms.
A shocked silence fell over the Akebako, until a piercing whisper came from Ayame-chan. "Ojiisan? Is that Megumi's koibito?"
Megumi, laughing and crying at the same time, lifted her head and turned to her friends. "No, he's not my koibito, Ayame-chan. He's my brother."
